Please Don't Leave Me
by Annie Dame
Summary: Megamind disappears after fighting a villain leaving Minion, Roxanne, and his daughter Aria. Everyone has given up looking for him but Aria knows he is still out there some where. Rated T for later chapters just in case.
1. Chapter 1

I don't own Megamind as you have probably guessed…..

A little blue hand reached out and grabbed his. His heart melted in pure happiness at the sight of blue against blue. He always thought it would be impossible, but here she was. Her head was only slightly bigger than a human's head and it had a light tuft of black hair on top. Her eyes were a mystical shade of green with streaks of blue racing towards her pupils. She made a small gurgling sound and looked up at him. He looked from her to a sleeping Roxanne in the nearby hospital bed and smiled. There was nothing that could ever make him as happy as having the two of them in his life. He would never let anything happen to them.

Five Years Later….

It was a pitiful sight really, but she was just so cute. Aria Rose Ritchie stood there tugging on her father's hand and once again begged him not to go. He wished so much that he could give in and spend the day at home with his two favorite people in the world…..and his favorite robotic fish. He couldn't though, it was his job to protect the city, and he wouldn't let them down.

Megamind bent down to pick up his daughter as tears began to sprout from the corners of her eyes.

"Daddy needs to go stop the bad guys so that you and mommy can be safe." He heard footsteps approaching and looked up to see a sleepy Roxanne rubbing her eyes and smiling. She looked so soft. He promised his daughter he would be home soon and kissed her on the forehead. Roxanne blew him a kiss as he walked out the door. Had he known it was the last time he would see them he would have at least looked back once more.


	2. Chapter 2

"Turn that music down Ari or I'm going to take it away!" Roxanne Ritchi yelled down into the basement. It had been twelve years since Megamind's disappearance. They had all moved out of the lair when Roxanne couldn't handle the daily reminders. Minion was still with them and right now he was in the kitchen cooking breakfast.

The music suddenly disappeared and Aria came bounding up the stairs wearing a starched white lab coat and protective goggles pushed up on her forehead. She resembled her father a great deal. Megamind had been declared dead for three years after the city had finally given up on their search..

The pain had been excruciating. Just looking at Roxanne's or Minion's face was enough to make her heart break. None of them had ever fully recovered from the loss. Tears sprang to her eyes, but she quickly wiped them away. She had to be strong for them all. If she let herself really feel the pain she knew, like Roxanne, she would never be able to come back from it.

"Chill out mom," she laughed.

Roxanne shot her an annoyed look. "You are going to be late for school."

Aria only laughed as she shed her lab clothes and picked up her backpack. She kissed her mother on the cheek and gave Minion a quick hug as she skipped out the door.

Later on at school

Aria was walking down the hall at school with her best friend. She wasn't the most popular kid at school, but she wasn't treated as poorly as her father. She just wasn't what some might call a social butterfly.

As they rounded the corner of the math wing her hand shot out to the wall to stabilize herself. She gripped the sides of her head for a moment as a sharp pain started to throb in her temples. This was by no means the first time this had happened. She shot her friend an apologetic look and slipped into a nearby bathroom. She checked that no one else was there before she locked the door and leaned against the wall.

The pains had started about a year after her father had gone missing. It had scared her mother and Minion to death. She was sitting at the table coloring while Minion made dinner and suddenly fell over unconscious. Minion had dropped everything and run her to the hospital without even thinking to tell Roxanne. They were lucky the kitchen in the lair didn't set fire.

Over the years she had been to specialists all over the country but no one knew what was wrong. Minion didn't recall any conditions like this from their home planet and had no memory of Megamind ever going through something like this. The pain got worse through the years but sh e got tougher and was usually able to remain conscious through the episodes.

She didn't know why she had these recurring pains, but she knew that they had to have something to do with Megamind and his disappearance. She had to figure out what was going on before these pains split her head open and killed her. Another stinging pain shot through her head, much worse than the last one. She fell to her knees on the hard bathroom tile and cried out. An image of big metal chains and a cold steel table with straps forced its way into her head.

A voice screamed out for her, "Don't look for me. Just please whatever you do, stay safe. She sat on the floor as the sharp pains subsided fighting the urge to be sick. Suddenly it all just stopped, and she slowly stood. When her knees began to wobble she gripped the edge of the sink and stared at her reflection in the mirror. "Woah, what **was** that?"


	3. Chapter 3

Roxanne got home and noticed that there was no AC/DC blasting and no loud hum of power tools. That was strange Ari should be home by now. She tip toed over to the teenagers room and gently slid the door open just enough to see if she was inside. What she saw broke her heart. Aria was seated in her father's old swivel chair that she had saved from his evil days.

Her chin was resting in her hands and she was staring intently without blinking at a framed picture of she and her father that was sitting on the desk in front of her. It was really breathtaking how much she looked and acted like him sometimes. It was almost like she had a little piece of him still there, living, breathing, talking, laughing.

To be honest this wasn't the first time that Roxanne had seen her daughter in such a strange and captivated position. Soon after Megamind disappeared Aria had begun having severe headaches. Not knowing what else to do Roxanne and had brought her to every doctor available. When that produced nothing she went to Minion hoping to hear that it was just some routine defect from their home planet. She was sorely disappointed to find out that Minion had no idea what could be causing the pains.

Her daughter had had a different theory. At night as Roxanne was tucking her in and wishing her sweet dreams she would whisper to her mother with teary eyes that she could feel that daddy was in danger. He needed help and they were the only ones who could aid him. Time went by and people ignored the innocent claims of a small child in denial about her father's death. As she grew older the pains subsided and her daughter stopped speaking about her father all together. Something was up, and it wasn't good.

…

It was about two in the morning. Aria tip toed down the hall. She snaked her head around the corner to make sure no one was awake. All the lights were out, that was good. She moved as quietly as she could manage through the house till she got to the basement. She stuffed various inventions into her bag, anything that she might need. She strapped her father's old dehydration gun on a holster around her thigh before heading for the back door.

Her hover board was leaning against the wall next to the door. She whipped out the dehydration gun and zapped it into a small glowing blue cube before she snuck out the door and into the night. She ran for about a block until she was sure no one had followed her from her house. Next she popped the cap of a water bottle and poured a small drop on the cube to rehydrate her hover board before hopping off and taking flight.


	4. Chapter 4

At about two thirty Aria had arrived just outside of the city. The hover board started to power down as she dropped beneath the cover of a grouping of trees. She took the picture of her father and her out of her bag and resumed the same focused position from earlier. She struggled to remember everything: the way he looked at her mother with love and devotion, his deep throaty laugh, and the twinkle he would get in his eye when they were playing and he thought he had tricked her. A lump formed in her throat as tears pricked in her eyes.

Suddenly her head exploded in the searing pain from earlier. She gritted her teeth against the pain as she struggled to stay conscious. She had to pay attention so she could feel what direction it was coming from. One deep breath…..two….YES! That was it, she had it. She knew where she needed to go.

…

He hadn't known they had surveillance on her, though he didn't feel like such a genius for not suspecting it. Now everything he had done to save her was blowing up in his face. A sad smile spread across his face as he watched her on the giant monitor. Aria was just like her mother, ruthless once she latched onto some theory or hunch and determined to do whatever was right, no matter how much danger they put themselves in. The smile vanished as he thought of what could happen to her, and a tear dripped down his face. She was a goner and it was all his fault.

…

Roxanne was furious, guilty, and scared out of her mind. She should have confronted her, should have made sure everything was okay. How could Aria do this to her? She had already lost her husband; she couldn't lose her only child too. She looked at Minion who only answered her with a stunned blank stare.

Roxanne became even more worried. She didn't know how the Minion bond worked on Megamind's home planet. After he had disappeared Minion hadn't talked for weeks. He seemed to be withering away before her very eyes. The only thing that seemed to pull him out of his misery was Aria. Could a minion bond be passed along to a child if the parent passed away? Roxanne didn't know, but she did know that if she didn't get Aria back she would lose Minion too. She had to find out where Aria had gone before it was too late.

…

She slid through the darkness with a quiet familiarity. This wasn't right…..he couldn't have been here all this time she would have known. There was no noise except the quiet tap of her foot hitting the concrete floor every once in a while. She was surrounded by massive machines that had been dead to the world for years.

She used to sneak in here away from the noisy city when she was younger. It was where she had found the swivel chair. Her mother would arrive panic stricken thinking it would be the one time she wouldn't be able to find her baby. She would be met with a sight that while relieving, simply broke her heart. Ari would be curled up asleep in the swivel chair where her father used to rock her to sleep while he checked the monitors for the night, sucking her thumb. Eventually Roxanne had consented to letting her bring the chair home on the condition that she stopped sneaking away.

Aria shook her head and cleared her thoughts of the past. She had to stay in the present; she had a job to do. She shut her eyes and concentrated on what her instincts were telling her to do. When a dull thump sounded behind her she gasped. The no longer evil lair had been abandoned for eleven years, who knew who might have snuck in. She doubted it was Megamind, wouldn't she have felt his presence? She ran towards the back of the evil layer until she was sure she was alone. Breathing heavily she let the mystical power that seemed to be directing her lead her towards the lab downstairs.


	5. Chapter 5

Roxanne was furious, guilty, and scared out of her mind. She should have confronted her, should have made sure everything was okay. How could Aria do this to her? She had already lost her husband; she couldn't lose her only child too. She looked at Minion who only answered her with a stunned blank stare.

Roxanne became even more worried. She didn't know how the Minion bond worked on Megamind's home planet. After he had disappeared Minion hadn't talked for weeks. He seemed to be withering away before her very eyes. The only thing that seemed to pull him out of his misery was Aria. Could a minion bond be passed along to a child if the parent passed away? Roxanne didn't know, but she did know that if she didn't get Aria back she would lose Minion too. She had to find out where Aria had gone before it was too late.

…

Megamind writhed against the rope that was holding him to the rickety old chair he used to use during Roxanne's kidnappings. This couldn't be happening. She was going to walk right into a trap. He had vowed he would never let harm come to her and he sure as hell wasn't going to let that happen now.

He heard a sharp snap and realized that his struggling had snapped the rope leaving it just loose enough for him to break free. He quickly set to work on freeing his feet. It was too late for him to escape, but he could still get her out before anyone reached them. He knew what he had to do, but it was going to hurt them both….

…

The excited hopeful look on her face as she rounded the corner and saw him broke his heart in two. If there was one thing he would do before they killed him it would be to let them feel just how much pain they had caused him over the years.

"DAD!" She ran towards him with her arms outstretched. Oh, how he wanted that hug with equal enthusiasm. His eyes burned with the tears he would not allow to escape. He had truly thought he would never live to see her again.

He roughly took her arms and pushed her away. Her face held a confused and slightly hurt expression, as if she could simply not believe that a gesture such as this one was possible. It was only a moment though before the sadness and confusion slid off her face and was once again replaced with giddy joy.

"I found you dad. They all said you were dead and gone, but I knew they were wrong! I know you were worried about me and didn't want me to come. I could feel it, but I'm going to get you out of here."

Megamind forced himself to look at her with a blank expression. "You misunderstood" he stated flatly. "I did not want you to come because I did not want to be found. I am better off without you all. I wanted you to stay away."

"I don't understand," Aria said feeling like this must be a dream.

"I don't want you! You were a mistake! Is that clear enough?" Megamind screamed.

…

Aria knew the grief was shining through, but she couldn't hide it. All her life she had been strong and faced the world head on. She had ignored any comments about her appearance or the jeering comments about her mother's supposed Stockholm syndrome or even the few who dared comment on her father's villainous past. She hadn't let it bother her; she had held her head high. This was different. This was real and it hurt.

The world had finally won. Something inside her tore, there was a loud ripping sound inside her head. She broke. The tears came and along with them a sound that was a mix between a scream and a moan that scared even her. She stared blankly ahead for a moment before her pain morphed into rage and she disappeared from her childhood home. It had been the last place she saw her father before he left her for twelve, long, hard, devastating years. Now she would be the one to leave him behind.

…

As Aria left the room Megamind fell to his knees and grabbed his head. At first he thought it was just the pain of hurting the person that mattered most to him in this world, but then he realized that he was actually feeling Aria's rage. It wasn't the hot anger that he would have expected; no, this was cold rage. It felt like being pierced by a thousand icicles. He did the only thing he knew he could do to ease the pain.

When Megamind was captured to extract the powers he didn't know he had, he had begun practicing. Mostly with communicating with Aria in hopes he could keep her away and safe. He had, however, also had the chance to experiment a bit on whichever poor hopeless sap happened to be guarding him. He couldn't do much though or they would realize and punish him. During these experiments he had found he could sometimes control emotion.

Megamind closed his eyes and concentrated on the image of Aria in his mind. He imagined the rage flowing out of her body like a river. When he felt no more pain and it seemed that the rage had subsided he collapsed the rest of the way to the ground. He saw three burly angry looking men enter the room, running toward him before the world went black.

…

Aria had been home for hours. No one was there when she got home, but she didn't care. She went straight to the lab in the basement. She couldn't hold it in any longer. She threw things left and right feeling a tiny sense of release as the sound of each crash and shatter filled her ears. She was destroying everything that she had spent years working on.

That was about two hours ago. Since then she had made her way up to her room and collapsed in a heap on her bed. Towards the end of her tirade a piercing pain had filled her own body before all her feelings of rage and sadness disappeared leaving her with a hollow numbness. It had taken all her strength just to climb the stairs back from the basement.

Suddenly something hit her. She had gotten this far without her father, why did she need him now? She still had her mother and Minion. She knew they would never leave her. They were family after all. They would never betray her like he did. She picked up the picture of she and Megamind and threw it into the trash bin. She let out a deep breath as the glass cracked and spilled out of the frame into the bottom of the bin. It was time to let go.


	6. Chapter 6

Roxanne and Minion had been searching all over the city for Aria for hours. They finally had headed back in the direction of home thinking that maybe she had returned. When Roxanne saw Aria's hover board sitting on the front lawn she ran towards the door, her heart racing.

She sprinted into the house and ripped open Aria's bedroom door ready to yell and scream and give her hell. However, as soon as she saw Aria all her anger flew out the window and was replaced with a massive sense of relief. There lying on the bed was her baby. She was safe at home and from what Roxanne could tell was completely unharmed. She ran into the room and grabbed Aria in a lung crushing hug.

Aria was completely rigid at first, then slowly her arms circled her mother. After a few moments a flood of uncontrollable tears and sobs broke through and Aria sat crying into her mother's shoulder for at least an hour. Roxanne quit trying to ask her what had happened after several failed attempts at questioning. Aria cried herself to sleep in her mother's arms.

….

Minion sat by Aria's bed and absentmindedly stroked her hair. He had insisted on watching over her tonight while Roxanne got some much needed rest. So many things were going through his head. Was there a new villain that had kidnapped her? If there was what would they do without a hero? Why wouldn't she tell anyone what had happened?

Minion, lost in thought, had yet to notice that Aria had woken up and was staring at him with a quizzical look on her face. "What are you thinking about?" she whispered. Minion's expression was one of fear and sadness.

"Honestly? I'm wondering what on Earth happened tonight to put you in this state." He looked at her expectantly hoping an explanation would follow. Instead there was only silence as Aria closed her eyes and bit her lip to hold back another flood of tears. She rolled over and mumbled "I don't want to talk about it."

He watched her sadly until she turned back over looking like she wanted to say more. Finally she sighed and looked up at Minion. "Did my parents plan on having me or did it just happen?" Minion was shocked and a little bit embarrassed at this question.

"Well…um…I suppose not. You just kind of happened heh heh."

"Oh…" Aria mumbled as she cast her eyes down to the floor. "Do you think Dad actually wanted me?"

"Well he was definitely nervous at first but I believe he thought you were the best mistake he ever made!"

Aria turned her face into the pillow to hide the tears that fell at the word mistake. "Hey Minion if you don't mind I think I'd like to try to get a little more sleep tonight." Minion kissed her head and slipped out of the room insisting her would be right in the living room and would check on her periodically. Aria closed her eyes and returned to her numb dreamless sleep.


End file.
